


Driftwood and Duty

by devilinthedetails



Series: The Ties that Bind [8]
Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Affection, Apologies, Duty, Family, Gen, Home, Knight & Squire, New Beginnings, mentoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 19:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12894657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Roald begins to see Legann as home.





	Driftwood and Duty

Driftwood and Duty 

At the end of the gardens, there were stone steps carved from the bluff that climbed steeply down to the shore, and, at the bottom of these stairs, sand white as the crests of the waves shimmering in the sun stretched before Roald, tempting as a blank canvas for a master painter. He was about to walk onto the sand when Lord Imrah halted him with a light hand on his elbow. 

“A word to the wise, lad. You’d do better to remove your shoes”—Lord Imrah jerked his chin at Roald’s feet—“before stepping on the beach. Sand will take a long time to shake out of your shoes, and besides, it’s easier to walk barefoot on the sand.” 

When he was a child, Roald had known this but had since forgotten. Wondering what other youthful lessons had slipped from his mind along with the memories that had taught them like water falling through his fingers when he tried to grab it, he sat down on the last stoop and removed his shoes.

Lord Imrah, who had taken off his own shoes, smiled as they set off along the beach. The sand scratched Roald’s toes and stuck to the soles of his feet, but he had missed the sensation, which he associated with running alongside his siblings on sun-baked shorelines, skin burning red as sunsets. His days had been filled with laughter then and had seemed to extend into eternity. “I’d forgotten how beautiful the beach was,” murmured Roald, unable to keep the wistfulness for a simpler past out of his voice. 

“The waves are calling.” Lord Imrah directed their steps to the wave-soaked sand where ocean kissed land in a passionate lover’s embrace. The sand, damp as clay along a riverbank, squelched beneath Roald’s feet, and he grinned at the sound. 

Water engulfed Roald’s ankles, and it was warmer than he had expected. Gasping, he leapt backwards. “It’s warm!” 

“Yes.” Lord Imrah chuckled, but it wasn’t a mean one. It was merely an amused one as if Roald had pulled some hilarious stunt that delighted him. “The Emerald Ocean this far south is reliably warm from early April to early September. Beyond that, I wouldn’t chance it for fear of freezing.” 

Saltwater ebbed and flowed around their ankles as they continued their stroll along the coast. They skirted clumps of seaweed shaped like mythical monsters and found shells of every color and size dotting the sand around them. 

Noticing a spiral shell that was remarkably intact given the waves smashing against it, Roald scooped it up. He traced an admiring finger over its surface, marveling at the smoothness the pounding saltwater had hammered as a smith smelted a sword. Lifting it to his ear, he shut his eyes and listened to the sea in his head. The waves were gentle and enticing there, and he smiled as he drew the shell way from his ear, commenting, “I missed hearing the ocean in a shell.” 

“That’s not the ocean, Roald.” Lord Imrah ruffled Roald’s hair, mussing it even more than the briny wind blowing off the water, but Roald appreciated the affection behind the gesture although his hair would have preferred less attention. “That’s the echo of your heartbeat. If you listen closer, you’ll hear the difference.” 

“My heart sounds like an ocean, my lord.” Roald’s lips quirked as he shot his knightmaster a playful glance. 

“Then your heart belongs in Legann.” Lord Imrah clapped his shoulder. 

Before Roald could answer, his focus was captivated by a piece of driftwood, wreckage washed ashore from some hapless ship that had sunk beneath the waves in a sudden spring storm. Barnacles clung to the driftwood as unlucky sailors might have before they drowned in the depths of the Emerald Ocean. The thought of these sailors, who would never return to their home ports or their families, made Roald contemplate who they were and where they had come from before they had set out on their final, fateful voyage. As he could never know those things, he asked instead, “Where do you think that driftwood came from, sir?” 

“Let me have a look.” Lord Imrah bent to examine a patch of wood unmarred by barnacles. Brushing his fingers against the damp, decaying wood, he went on, “It’s from Carthak originally. That’s wood of a kind that only grows in the northern provinces of Carthak.” 

Impressed that his knightmaster had been able to identify the wood so definitively and rapidly, Roald whistled, inspired in this expression by the music of the ocean birds as they flew overhead in search of prey. “Your knowledge of driftwood is unparalleled, my lord.” 

“One of the occupational hazards of being lord of a port city,” observed Lord Imrah, dry as the sand beyond the reach of the ever-encroaching waves. “You’ll learn the different types of wood used to build ships around the world as you watch them dock in Port Legann, I assure you, squire.” 

“I look forward to that.” Roald was sincere since he was curious about the cultures and countries of the world beyond his own. The waves lapping at the beach, swallowing the sand, tantalized him with the reminder tat he was at the end of Tortall, and that the same water that swelled around his ankles danced with the shores of the Yamani Islands, the Copper Isles, Carthak, Tyra, and Scanra. Standing beside the ocean, he felt small but in an empowering rather than demeaning way. He felt connected to a larger world that he might only ever imagine and never see. 

Maybe it was the wild courage of the ocean that made him say to his knightmaster, “Sir, I don’t wish to be a problem for you or your wife.”

“You aren’t a problem.” Lord Imrah’s tone was crisp but the palm he laid on Roald’s shoulder was gentle. 

“I am, though.” Roald ducked his head, because he had learned from listening to Lady Marielle that he was a royal problem for her and to Lord Imrah’s marriage. He felt like driftwood washed into a castle where he wasn’t wanted. “Just by being a prince, I’m a problem for you and your lady, my lord.” 

“You being a prince isn’t the problem.” Lord Imrah studied Roald sternly, and Roald longed to sink into the sand. “You choosing to eavesdrop on my wife is the problem. My lady was shocked at who you were because I was wrong not to warn her of your identity before you arrived here, but she’ll recover from her surprise. You’d never have known her worried reaction if you hadn’t eavesdropped, however. When you eavesdropped, you created your own problem, Roald.” 

“I thought the lecture on eavesdropping was over, sir.” Roald couldn’t contain a sulky scowl as his toes curled around the sand beneath his feet. He didn’t think it was fair that Lord Imrah should chide him twice for the same offense especially when he had already apologized for his bad behavior, and if there was one trait Roald was defined by it was his keen sense of justice. 

“The lecture is over.” Lord Imrah arched an eyebrow. “The consequences of your action, which aren’t imposed by me in in this case I should note, aren’t over. I’m merely pointing out the consequences of your own behavior, squire, so you may see the value of not suffering them in the future.” 

“I understand, my lord.” Roald did grasp his knightmaster’s point now that it had been explained to him. His problem was self-inflicted. His curiosity, his drive to know things he wasn’t meant to, had brought him needless pain. He would’ve been wiser to remain ignorant than violate Lord Imrah and Lady Marielle’s privacy. 

“Good.” Lord Imrah softened, and Roald stifled a sigh of relief at not being scolded again. Squeezing Roald’s shoulder, he added, “I also want you to understand that you’ll always be welcome in Legann. With time, I hope that you’ll think of it as another home.” 

Glancing up through his eyelashes at the severe lines of his knightmaster’s face, which Roald realized now had been etched more by humor than harshness, and seeing the waiting kindness in those fiercely intelligent eyes, he wondered if that would make Lord Imrah a second father to him. If so, he thought that he would enjoy having Lord Imrah as a second father despite the lectures, which weren’t cruel—just stern. 

Needing more than ever to know if his knightmaster regarded him as a burden, Roald took a bracing breath before beginning, “My lord, you told me I could ask you anything I felt I needed to know, and you wouldn’t be angered. I need to know if you took me as your squire only out of duty.” 

“You speak as if duty were a weak force.” Lord Imrah shook his head. “Roald, duty is the thread that knits this kingdom together. Without everyone from peasant to monarch doing his or her duty, the tapestry that is our country would unravel. Duty may sound dull and passionless, but every time we fulfill an obligation to one another, the trust and the affection—the bond—between us grows. Duty ties everything and everyone in Tortall together.” 

“Duty is the first and most important thing, sir,” agreed Roald, since he had been raised with the belief that his duty came before everything else and that as prince he had been born to serve the realm. 

“Apart from duty, I can assure you that you’re exactly the sort of lad—filled with potential, devoted to your duties, and committed to justice—that I would want as my squire.” Lord Imrah patted Roald on the back, and Roald recognized that his knightmaster was offering him affection beyond duty. 

Moved to return such a declaration, Roald pledged solemnly, “I will serve you faithfully, not just out of duty but also out of affection, my lord.” 

“A knight could ask no more of his squire,” Lord Imrah replied, and Roald thought he did feel affection for his knightmaster already. Not many knights would take their squires on a city tour or a walk along the beach. Few knights were as willing to joke with their squires or provide a reassuring touch on the back or shoulder. Roald might have thought that he had been fortunate in his knightmaster if he hadn't known that his father had carefully chosen Lord Imrah for him. This was planned for him—it wasn’t blind luck—and that epiphany somehow made Roald even more grateful to Lord Imrah and his father. He would reward their kindnesses with a loyalty that went beyond duty. 

They finished their walk along the shore in comfortable silence. It wasn’t until they were entering the castle courtyard that Lord Imrah spoke again. Nodding at a petite, dark-haired figure nocking an arrow as she stood across from the archery targets, he observed, “There’s my wife practicing her archery. You may apologize to her now.” 

Before Roald could respond, Lord Imrah nudged him in the direction of Lady Marielle. Roald’s feet felt heavy as granite as he made his way over to Lady Marielle. As he approached, he found it easier to look a her weapon—a handsomely wrought yew bow with iron spikes at either end that could be used as an impromptu spear if the battle deteriorated to the desperation of archers in hand-to-hand combat—than at her. 

“That’s a fine bow, my lady, and you’re an even finer archer.” Roald saw that all of her arrows had hit the bull’s eye of her target. She was a more adept archer than him, that was for certain. “But you aren’t from Legann originally.” 

“No, I was an Irimor girl before I became a Legann lady.” Lady Marielle selected another arrow from the quiver hanging at her hip. 

Lady Marielle being from Irimor explained everything about her as far as Roald was concerned. It was widely expressed among the nobility that Irimor women were made of iron—trained in weaponry not only for defense but also for attack—and were imperious, expecting always to be in command of everything and everyone under their noses. 

Remembering the tattered falconer’s glove with the Irimor crest he had uncovered in his bedchamber, Roald asked, “Was the Irimor glove I saw in my room left behind by a nephew Lord Imrah took as his squire, my lady?” 

“Yes, a nephew and a troublemaker.” Lady Marielle grinned crookedly as another one of her arrows slammed into the bull’s eye. 

Figuring that this was as good an opening as he could get to begin his apology, Roald said softly, “My lady, I don’t wish to be a troublemaker in your house.” 

“You won’t be.” Lady Marielle’s smile became even more lopsided. “At least not any more than my nephew was.” 

“I was wrong to listen to your conversation with your husband.” Roald’s cheeks blazed like Beltane fires, and it took all of his strength not to mumble the words but pronounce them properly. A graceless apology was a useless one, as Lord Imrah had reminded him earlier. “I beg your pardon, Lady Marielle. I can only promise you that I will never eavesdrop on you again and that I don’t make it a habit of such discourteous behavior.” 

“Apology accepted.” Lady Marielle inclined her head graciously, and Roald felt a surge of gratitude to her for not making this moment any more awkward for him. She was being the epitome of true politeness by minimizing any unpleasant situation or discomfiture he might have experienced. “I’m willing to believe that you eavesdropping on me wasn’t your best self as I wasn’t showing my best self in my conversation with my husband. I was speaking from my stress, not from my heart. Please forgive me for the things you overheard me say.” 

“There’s nothing to forgive you for, my lady.” Roald bowed, convinced that the only fault was with him for eavesdropping. 

“Excellent.” Lady Marielle favored him with a perfectly straight smile. “Then let’s begin again. Welcome to Legann, Roald. I hope that you’ll come, in the fullness of time, to regard it as another home.” 

“I already am.” Roald returned her smile with a broad grin of his own, grateful for how he and her husband had opened home and heart to him. “Thank you, Lady Marielle.”


End file.
